1. Field
Example embodiments relate to an image data decoding method and apparatus based on an availability of a decoded reference data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, when image data is divided into a plurality of macro blocks to perform parallel processing, the parallel processing is performed based on data processed in advance.
Particularly, when the image data is decoded to perform the parallel processing, image data processed in advance may be used to process a current data unit. Accordingly, a dependency may exist between data to decode image data. Therefore, an availability of the data processed in advance may be determined to decode the image data based on the parallel processing. To determine the availability of the data processed in advance, a core may calculate an area of which the availability is to be determined, may access a memory that stores availability information to determine the availability of the calculated area, and may obtain the availability information.
When a plurality of cores are used to perform the parallel processing, an area to be used for storing the availability information needs to be located in a shared area, which is accessible to each of the plurality of cores and thus, may be located outside the core. As the cores access the stored availability information, overhead caused by accessing data may increase.
A memory may store a single piece of availability information for each storage space of 32 bits or 64 bits to enable the core to readily access the data and thus, the memory may be significantly wasted. Also, as a size of an image to be processed increases, a requested capacity of a memory may increase.